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<title>>7 by aquarium_seeds</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969731">>7</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquarium_seeds/pseuds/aquarium_seeds'>aquarium_seeds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Descent into Madness, Gen, Horcrux Creation, Horcruxes, Insanity, Madness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:23:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969731</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquarium_seeds/pseuds/aquarium_seeds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He would never die! Never! So long as he could kill, he could live!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>>7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eventually, years later (by which point he couldn’t even recall how many he had made), the objects didn’t even have any significance to them. A candlestick from the Malfoy’s entrance hall. A rusty manacle from a disused cell. A butter knife, on a whim. Horcruxes littered Voldemort’s domains, each of his (increasingly filthy) bolt-holes cluttered with soul-split-infused objects. </p><p>That fateful night of his rebirth in the graveyard had shaken him more than he cared to admit. Those shadows of those who were dead, emerging from his wand one by one like ghastly spectors come to haunt him— what did it mean? How was it possible? In ejecting themselves from his wand, did the dark magic he gained from their deaths flee his wand too? If even the veil between life and death could be lifted, then what good was a horcrux? </p><p>He began making horcruxes again. At first he thought only to make back-ups of the horcruxes most vulnerable to that strange ‘un-doing’ magic— the most magical items, ones he thought might somehow ‘wear off’ over time— the Cup, the Locket, and the Diadem. 10 total horcruxes. He relaxed slightly, for a while. Until Dumbledore began sniffing around his old life— the wards placed around the Gaunt shack broken— alerting Voldemort that his ultimate secret was perhaps not so secret after all. </p><p>He began making more. And more. And more. It grew easier with time and practice. Creating a horcrux was as simple as whispering the reprehensible spell, now— it didn’t take the intense preparation and energy drain it once did.</p><p>The Death Eaters were getting antsy, twitchy any time he raised his wand. Any one of them were fodder for his horcruxes— each murder a new split that would guarantee his continued existence. </p><p>A death, for his eternal life. </p><p>Immortality was… not quite what he expected.Voldemort grew more and more sickly, less and less human, until eventually he was unrecognizable as once humanoid in shape. His body collapsed, bones in arms and legs bowing and brittle, knobby knuckles on stunted hands and feet fed by disgusting veins pulsating with sluggish blood. Soon he could not support his own weight. His ribcage bulged out under tissue-paper skin over a concave stomach, mottled with malformed scales. His head, huge and bulbous on a tiny spiny neck, lolled and rocked with each motion. His eyes stared at nothing. He did not eat or sleep. He was, however, alive; and would be forever, now. </p><p>He began to lose time, to forget things. He snarled and raged at his Death Eaters when they fulfilled his own wishes, because he had forgotten he had given the order. Sometimes he felt lost in a fog, unable to think or act. It was during these long stretches that the Death Eaters would relax a little— the Dark Lord’s incapacitation meant more time for their own little squabbles. After all, it seemed only a matter of time that the Dark Lord would become obsolete, lost in his own madness, and a new leader had to claw their way up to the top. </p><p> </p><p>Voldemort was aware that his Death Eaters looked upon him with disgust. That their continued subservience was only from fear (his wand hand was still as quick and brutal as ever). But what did they know? He had done it, finally conquered death! He would never die! His Death Eaters could never understand this… transcendence. (He stubbornly ignored how his life was more of a living death. This is what he had wanted… right?)</p><p>His body was so frail and his mind so vague that he had very little to do. When Voldemort resurfaced from his haze (which was becoming less and less often, now) he entertained himself by making the Death Eaters cower under his wand. Making horcruxes was all he really thought about, now. He would never die! Never! So long as he could kill, he could live!</p><p>It was during one of these “sessions” of rampaging killings and horcrux-creation that he suddenly stopped— eyes bulging and throat gasping for air. With a wheeze, he collapsed onto his back, slumping from his propped-up position. There was a gurgle, a convulsion, and then there was nothing.</p><p>His soul, a tiny wisp of black smoke from a flame long extinguished, snuffed out. There was too little left to split. </p><p>And thus the fall of Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord, Heir of Slytherin and Terror of the British Isles, came about not by a scrawny bespectacled boy, but by his own wand hand— which still twitched in the signature lightning bolt shape of his favorite spell for minutes after his ultimate, final, death.</p>
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